by Bill White
[Transcript]
A couple of segments ago, I promised a comment on the war in Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine is terrible. War is never good. And the deaths of civilians, if there are any in Ukraine at this stage are regrettable, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine was something the West could have and should have prevented. That said, today, I do not believe it’s our fight. I am against any involvement in the war. I don’t believe we should be supplying weapons; in my opinion, it’s splitting hairs to supply weapons and claim that NATO is not involved in the war and I also disagree with these ever-increasing sanctions that will cause more economic damage for the West than they will for Russia.
Despite what the corporate media is telling you, the war in Ukraine is not genocide. According to widely held beliefs, genocide is the intentional destruction of a people - usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group - in whole or in part. With that said, based on that definition, EVERY war is genocide, even those perpetrated by the West.
But Putin did not invade Ukraine because they’re Ukrainian. He didn’t attack the country because of their race, the religion of its people, or anything like it. Vladimir Putin launched this war because the West has for thirty years continued to encroach past previously defined lines, which our leaders had agreed not to overstep. The continued expansion of NATO, toward Russia, is not the fault of Russia. For its part, Ukraine has courted the West and encouraged the atmosphere that it would join NATO or at least that it would like to join NATO, which is a red line for Russia.
According to their own statements, since the late 1990s relations between NATO and Ukraine have developed into one of the most substantial of NATO’s partnerships. If you’re looking for someone to blame for the war in Ukraine, look West, not East. Russia is naturally protecting its sovereignty, much like the United States did in the 60s when Russia parked itself 90 miles off the coast of America.
If Putin’s war is genocide, then our wars are genocide.
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